Siegfried and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Staging

Siegfried saw Castorf take absurdly distracting staging to an entirely new level. The curtain rose over a Mount Rushmore of communism with the faces of Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao looming above an Airstream trailer in which Mime is attempting to fix the sword Notung. When Siegfried arrives, instead of leading a bear he has been wrestling out in the forest, it is a man with a rope around his neck (this whole thing far too reminiscient of Pulp Fiction – “bring out the Gimp!”). Siegfried ties the man to a corner of the trailer and begins bullying Mime. Meanwhile, the “bear” spends the remaining 45 minutes of the act doing useless, distracting things like making piles of books, crawling in and out of the Airstream’s windows, making tea and eating, crawling under the Airstream, and smearing himself with black grease. None of these things supported or advanced the narrative, but they served to distract from it which is a shame. The voices again were spectacular, Stefan Vinke who we saw as Siegfried in Seattle a few years ago was incredible.

            Act 2 was no better in terms of the director upstaging the performers. The stage had rotated to show a shopping mall where Fafner the dragon is supposed to be sleeping and brooding over is treasure, the Ring, the Tarnhelm, and so on. However, when we first see him, he is not a dragon, he is a goon from Miami vice wearing a terrible long silver wig with a beard painted on with black stage make up. He is also surround by a pack of trashy party girls. However, there was a reptilian element in the form of a person dressed as an alligator crawling around in the background. The sword, Notung, is now a Kalashnikov which Seigfried used to noisily shoot Fafner. The forest bird is played as a glittery Vegas showgirl ringed by at least 20 feet of shiny, protruding plumage, and when she was done singing (the only not magnificent voice of the evening – shrill and strident, clearly playing it as a parrot, not the traditional, sweet, forest songbird!) she and Siegmund began to make out.

            Then there was act 3, which made us all the saddest. It took what had heretofore been an obnoxious, hard to watch production, and created something truly cringe-worthy that we will all be sorry to have witnessed years from now. Details here will be lacking because it hurts to bring it to mind. One moment illustrates the entire problem: at the end, as Siegfried and Brunhilde sing their powerful duet, there are 5 animatronic/ puppet alligators crawling around the stage. Their cavorting doesn’t take enough attention away and break up a very intense moment enough, so the bird comes back out and rolls about on the largest eventually sticking her head inside its mouth and wriggling all the way inside. At the end when, Siegfried has overcome Brunhilde’s fears and hesitations about mortality and love, and the music soars in triumphs we have him ditch Brunhilde to drag the bird out of the alligators mouth and she is all over him in “gratitude”.

             So far, the audience has been tolerant, if not receptive to the staging – several complaints about the Notung/ Kalashnikov thing were overheard at intermission. Keywords: incoherent, pointless, confusing, and distracting. At the end of Act 3, however, there was a great deal of booing. That is until the singers came out, because they were incredible.

             The gross disrespect for the story, the audience (all of whom have spent years getting access to this festival and came for Wagner), and above all the music is incomprehensible. No one is obligated to like Wagner or the Ring Cycle. Many people object to it and him for political, historical, or ethical reasons and they are certainly within their rights to do so – there are many valid concerns in each of those arenas surrounding this artist and his work. I would expect anyone with those feelings to refuse to touch the work. This whole thing has been hateful and horrible, but it doesn’t feel like a critique. It’s childish, rude, and spiteful – it lacks the intelligence to be an attack on the story or its creator. It has been a heartbreaking end to a 10 year dream. We were seriously considering turning in our tickets for Gotterdamerung, but decided that the actual talent in the theater was too amazing to be missed – if necessary, we can close our eyes as it is really all about the music. 

Munich Mus(eum)ings

Alte Pinakothek

            Our first off day saw us back in Munich for a museum marathon! The Pinakothek museums (a complex of 5 different warehouses of glorious human artistic achievement) was our first port of call. The museums are grouped together in the Kunstareal district – a lovely area bounded by the Koenigsplatz on one end and the Altstadt on the other.

Playmobil Drurer

            We left Bayreuth early so as to have our noses pressed to the glass as soon as they opened. Our time is so limited, and today’s plan was so ambitious that not a second could be wasted. We started with the Alte Pinakothek and were disappointed to discover that fully half of the galleries were off limits due to a long-term renovation designed to make it a good green citizen. They need a renovation to their lighting program – they use the white, light screening window treatments, and that combined with LEDs reflected down from the ceiling recesses was a horrible combination. The glare on the surface of the paintings was terrible. You wandered the gallery, craning and contorting your neck in the vain quest to find the magic perspective that would allow you to actually see the whole image. It was like that “Cinema Sins” joke about the lens flares – Renaissance Redux presented by J.J. Abrahms and Bayerische Staatsgemaldesammlungen.

            They have a marvelous collection and had thoughtfully pulled some of their heavy hitters from galleries under construction into special exhibition spaces. We will spare you our tedious prose on the glories of the collection; you can read all about it here:

https://www.pinakothek.de/besuch/alte-pinakothek

            Next it was on to the Neue Pinakothek – this was our favorite museum of the day! It is such a charming space. Although it is small, the collection is wonderful, the layout is beautiful, the lighting was significantly better than at the Alte Pinakothek, and it posseses what we have come to see is the most valuable attribute a museum can have – wooden floors! See more about why you wish you were here: https://www.pinakothek.de/besuch/neue-pinakothek

See?

Neue Pinakothek

            We left the Pinakothek universe for a visit to the Glyptothek – two temples erected to the art of the Greek and Roman world. One building houses a series of lovely rooms housing their collection of marble statuary (principally Roman copies of Greek originals – including the exquisite Barberini Faun) surrounding a central court. The other building has an extraordinary collection of Greek red and black figure-ware and a marvelous series of rooms highlighting the vast superiority of the Etruscans to us. Seriously, when you look at the spectacular artistry, innovation, and just general awesomeness of civilizations long gone it makes you pretty sure that evolution is an exclusively biological phenomenon.

            Evidence: http://www.antike-am-koenigsplatz.mwn.de/en/glyptothek-munich.html

            Hobbling on swollen feet and clutching at our strained backs, we gamely set out for the der Moderne. We just aren’t as young as I think we are when I plan these trips! Anyhow, the Pinakothek museums each have a different late night and so we had until eight! Ten hours is a lot of museum, but the variety of venues and collections kept the Stendhal Syndrome from kicking in – to be fair, if half the Alte Pinakothek hadn’t been closed, we might not have made it! Also, at this point the off-spring was bleating about child abuse and a cold drink, but we powered on.

This museum had enormous sections given over to special exhibitions and a whole floor dedicated to design. We were able to show Z a Commodore 64 AND a dot matrix printer! The paintings on permanent display occupy just a few galleries, but there were some wonderful Fauves, lots of German Expressionists, and a nice sampling of Cubism, Dada, and Surrealism.

Glyptothek

Like so: https://www.pinakothek.de/besuch/pinakothek-der-moderne

            We crawled out and dragged ourselves down to the tourist fleshpots of the Altstadt. We decided to treat ourselves to dinner at the Ratskeller – we wanted to dine in the gorgeous courtyard and gorge on local bier, wein, brot, and kasse! Sadly, the courtyard area was completely encased in scaffolding (which made the disclaimer on the menu about the prices being so high because of the ambience pretty bitter!), but the food was wonderful, and we were far to whipped to get up and seek out other options!

Pinakothek der Moderne

Hojotoho! Heiaha!

           Well, we discovered how Frank Castorf intends to cope with weaving his story together – he doesn’t. At all. In any way. Hunding and Sieglinde’s hut, we at first assumed was in some Louisiana backwoods or Texas oil-patch wasteland. It did boast a large cage with live turkeys – They squawked at Hunding’s entrance and couldn’t take their eyes off Sieglinde as she explained about Notung. Who could? She was spectacular – this was the absolute best Siegmund ever and Sieglinde is at least a tie for first. They were unbelievable. Hunding was excellent as well, so we were assured of that whatever went on visually.

           When the stage rotated for the next act, we discovered it was some Central Asian/ Russian oil field. We were never clear on who/ what the Valkyries were supposed to be. Wotan is now a Russian oil baron/ gangster – oddly when he first appeared with Frika (appearing as Lady Macbeth now) he was wearing a bizarre beard that looked like an elementary school prop made from yarn. When he appears again, it is (thankfully) gone.

           More magnificent Siegliende and Siegmund in the next scene. Brunhilde who had underwhelmed in her first appearance was better here in her scene with Siegmund. The fight between Hunding and Siegmund was off stage – shown in Blair Witch cam on the on-stage screen. This whole part was strangely incoherent (much like the whole production, really)

The noble dead are oil field workers killed in industrial accidents, except that some of them get up and wander off to perform various strange and distracting actions like reading a book in the turkey cage, locking someone into the turkey cage and attacking it with a flag, and finally, cutting the trapped person out of the turkey cage – lots of this action was broadcast on a big screen in case it hadn’t taken enough attention away from the actual story in real time.

            The Valkyries entrance seriously disappointed – the iconic “Hojotoho!” was lackluster and their amusing banter about the dead somewhat low energy. They appeared variously as Clara Barton?, Lady Capulet at the tomb?, Pre-Raphaelite militant nuns? Brunhilde ran onto the stage as Cruella de Ville – not really, but in a huge grizzly of a fur coat and a tall, spiky, silver Mohawk cap. The Valkyries stripped off their top layer and stood around the tall wooden derrick in shiny evening gowns with an array of strange sparkly headdresses. We were not impressed with Brunhilde. She lacked intensity and power for the most part – her scene with Sieglinde (who was again marvelous) was an exception and showed what she could do if she wanted.

            The final scene between Brunhilde and Wotan had real moments of pathos and beauty – but only moments and that was infuriating as the whole scene is supposed to be immensely powerful and heartbreaking. I really feel like the action interfered with the focus of the scene. A particularly infuriating example of this is at one point, while Brunhilde is singing, Wotan is mincing around in the background. He finds a bearskin rug that he starts dancing with. It seems that is saying to the audience that the story and the singers should not be the center of attention.  The stage direction, which has everyone pointedly ignore and/ or mock whomever they are singing with seems a proxy for the director’s attitude to the entire project.

Here is what we wish we had heard:

Bamberg Charms, The Ring Confuses

Bamberger Dom

           We set out early to explore Bamberg before we our performance in Bayreuth. Bamberg is a lovely town that was spared most of the ravages of war, but unfortunately was actively addressing the ravages of time during our visit! Almost every site we visited was coated in scaffolding, construction equipment, and/ or restoration experts hard at work cleaning frescoes, repaving stone bridges, and just generally patching up. The steeply winding streets of the UNESCO World Heritage alt-stadt invite investigation at every twist and turn, and the river at the heart of the town allows for a picturesque series of bridges and a most unique location for the town hall – sited mid-river, precisely between two arches (currently undergoing re-enforcement).

Bamberg Horseman

            We started at the cathedral, Bamberger Dom. The first church on this hillside was founded in 1004, but the current look is from the 13^th century. It’s a mash up of Romanesque and gothic styles such as one might get from a committee of church architects. It is made of a light colored local sandstone with four squared steeple towers capped with green copper roofs. Just inside the door is the grave of Pope Clemens II, the only pope buried north of the Alps. There is a dark, narrow, and steep set of stairs that leads underneath the altar to a crypt containing the former bishops of the Dom. The most curious object within is the Bamberger Reiter, a statue of a young man riding a horse set high up on one of the columns. No one is sure who it is supposed to be, but the cathedral children’s brochure says the best guess is that he is King Stefan of Hungary who married Gisela, the sister of Emperor Heinrich. Heinrich ruled Germany 1000 years ago.

            Next we visited the Residenz. Ludwig II has rather spoiled us for this kind of thing and even though the entire suite of Electors’ rooms boasted absolutely magnificent tapestries, and the Imperial suite featured an impressive trompe l’oeil audience chamber (complete with wonderfully unsubtle allusions to the power, prestige, and prerogatives of the ruling family) and a room full of exquisite Venetian canal scenes, we were most impressed with the views it afforded over the city and the wonderful rose garden! 

            We trekked up to Kloster St. Michael, but were deeply disappointed to find it in the throes of such extensive restoration that it was almost entirely closed off and whole portions of the exterior were behind wooden barricades.

            I feel like I have used up my life-time supply of the word “charming” on this trip, but it really is the most apt term for this captivating little town! Its greatest attraction is just wandering its streets searching out the ideal café!

            We could scarcely contain our excitement for the start of our 4^th complete Ring Cycle and at the Wagner Mecca, Bayreuth! Wagner, although a creative genius of breathtaking proportions, was undoubtedly a complete mess in almost every other arena. His myriad moral, personal, financial, and intellectual failings are well documented elsewhere, so we are not even going to think about wading into that morass here.

Bamberg Rathaus

            The Bayreuth Festspiele had sent us an email detailing changes for this year due to enhanced security measures – the entrances gated off and manned by armed police, no red carpet, no bags (ladies evening clutch exemption!), no cushions (a BIG deal as the seats are these little wooden things reminiscent of 1950’s elementary school desks without the writing surface), and the need to arrive an hour early. That is kind of a big deal too as most of the Ring Cycle is already several hours long. We found on arrival these measures were related to threats received due to their new production of Parsifal – set in an IS controlled portion of Iraq! Apparently everyone was incensed initially by the changes, but the whole crowd was meek as little lambs – showing their tickets 5-6 times to get into their seats and all. Possibly the multiple horrific incidents around Bavaria this last week made it seem less excessive.

            Das Rheingold is the shortest piece of the cycle at two and a half hours long, but it is written to be performed without intermission. This was our fifth Rheingold and while we had heard that the production was “challenging”, we were eager to hear the famed acoustics, celebrated orchestra, and internationally acclaimed soloists. Well, we got all of that. The sound was magnificent – entirely making up for the two and a half hours in the equivalent of the medieval “little ease” torture instrument. The theater is indeed a cramped, airless, sweat box. The seats are sloped to provide excellent sightlines, but no leg room.

            We didn’t want to “spoil” our experience so we assiduously avoided reviews of our production, which opened for the 250^th anniversary in 2013. Well, it was certainly one way to interpret the story. It was set in some depressed, sleazy Route 66 town in Texas at a gas station/ no-tell motel. The Rhein was an above ground pool next to the barbecue deck. The cast seemed to be taken from a range of late 70’s early 80’s TV – Wotan looked like a pimp/ crime boss from Starsky and Hutch, The rest of the gods looked like refugees from Dallas or Dynasty. Fafner was played as a sadistic psychopath, beating up random people and breaking windows and trashing the gas station with his baseball bat. The Rheinmaidens were somewhere between gone-to-seed Vegas showgirls and 80’s Madonna.

            The stage was a bit cramped for the action – primarily throwing furniture and shoving each other. The stage rotated to afford better a view of either the motel or the gas station as needed. Although build in several levels, a great deal of the action took place inside the motel room on the second level over the pool area. It was somewhat small for five gods and two construction gangsters and the staging called for lots of jostling in the window and jumping onto the bed.

            A Jumbotron hangs over the motel and a camera man dodges in and out capturing close-up content; another video screen provided images of Albrect’s transformations (inside an airstream) and showed snippets of what the actors who weren’t in the ongoing scene were doing. We’re old fashioned in that we prefer a director to an invisible, magical force – they should cast whatever spell to bring their version of the story to life, but I shouldn’t have to see the eye of newt or whatever. Frank Castorf doesn’t seem able to get off the stage – many of his conceits detract from the story and serve as nothing more than a kind of theatrical “tagging” his name emblazoned 20 feet high in puffy, faux gothic letters all over the place.

            Again, the voices were phenomenal, the orchestra sublime, and overall we are thrilled to be here, but if this had been our first Ring Cycle we might not have made so much effort to see more. This take on the story works enough for Rheingold, but we cannot begin to imagine how it can be carried through the remainder of the story. Brunhilde as Wotan’s daughter from his “nice” first wife, who has become a petroleum engineer? Siegfried as an EPA inspector? We really don’t see it, but I guess we will – starting tomorrow at Die Walkure!

Nuremberg Trails

LorenzKirche

            Sorry about the title – we absolutely could not resist. We slept in to the decadent hour of 8 today! The only thing on the itinerary was wandering the city of Nuremberg. This is another of the places that the destruction by the allied bombing was so comprehensive that you can hardly imagine they ever pulled it back together. Pictures of the city in 1945-6 show a wasteland; glorious medieval cathedrals and whole districts reduced to gravel. The dedication and love the citizens had for their city is incredibly moving. To painstakingly rebuild – with the original material harvested from the wreck - seems one of the labors of Hercules.

Marriage fountain, Ehekarussel Brunnen

            We first passed through the Handwerkhof, a reconstruction of the medieval craftsmen’s quarter. Nothing was open yet, but fortunately it was on the way back to the hotel. The Lorenzkirche was next along our route with its twin crown-like, beautifully patinated steeples and a rose window 9 meters across. We were on our way in to look around when we discovered that a service was in progress. Monday morning at before 10 seemed like an odd time for church to us, but we left with plans to see it on the way back. Our walk took us to a former city wall tower in front of which sit the Ehekarussel Brunnen. It’s a fountain showing scenes from married life based on a poem Hans Sachs. He apparently held a dim view of marriage which is reflected in the fountain, dragons, a man in chains, two skeletal figures strangling each other, and so on. A middle school tour group was in hysterics over the somewhat crude verse and explicit images!

            The first church we entered was St. Sebalduskirche which is the city’s oldest. St. Sebald was actually from Nuremberg. It is primarily constructed from a beautiful rusty colored sandstone. Like everything else in town, it was heavily damaged in World War II and restored. There is a series of photographs inside showing the post-war devastation. They make the restoration efforts seem that much more remarkable when you see what it was all reduced to.

            We roamed up to the Kaiserburg, the city’s hilltop fortress, passing the Albrecht Drurer House and monument along the way. Next to the Kaiserburg is a small garden that affords views of the city, though not of the best parts. The Tiergartnertor, an old gate into the city sits nearby. In front of the tower is a bronze rabbit statue inspired by the drawings of Albrecht Drurer. However, the sculptor opted to use glass for the eye instead of metal which has deteriorated over time giving the rabbit a bit of a possessed look.

St. Sebalduskirche

            At the Frauenkirche a huge disappointment was in store. We had really wanted to see the Schoner Brunnen, but it was covered in a layer of scaffolding and then the scaffolding was draped in Tyvek! It was that printed drape so you can see an image of what you aren’t actually getting to see, but that turns out to not be very successful with multi-tiered ornamental fountains. However at noon the clockwork on the bell tower performed its trick - Mannleinlaufen. This is the procession of seven figures, representing the electoral princes, around the central figure of King Karl IV. The church is another remarkable reconstruction and as such an impressive testament to the indomitable spirit of the local population.

center aisle in St. Sebalduskirche

            Finally we made our way back to Lorenzekirche where the service had ended so we could go inside. This was probably the most beautiful of the churches we saw. The columns along the center aisle are adorned with life-sized carving of biblical figures. The huge rose window is framed by the pipes of the organ which we were lucky enough to hear being played as the organist was practicing. Near the alter is a tabernacle dating from the 15^th century that reached to the top of the column it is next to and bends into the arch above. The small shop had a Playmobil Martin Luther figure complete with a Bible in German commemorating the upcoming 500 year anniversary of the 95 Theses. Obviously, we needed to get one.

detail of St. Sebalduskirche

            Next we made our way through the maze of food vendor stands. The produce on display in the markets is absolutely gorgeous. The proliferation of gorgeous still life paintings in Northern Europe is now fully explained. We also sampled the famous Nurnberg elisenlebkuchen. Lebkuchen are a German Christmas requirement, but the Nuremberg version is the uber-cookie. Its name is regionally protected and any cookie carrying it must be made in Nuremberg to the exact standards. They were delicious and quite interesting – the cookie base is an enlarged communion wafer; this is due to their origins in a 14^th century German monastery. All the ingredients are held to have healing properties and religious significance.  

Tiergartenertor

            A visit to a bakerei offering samples of handmade breads and spreads, and to a couple of chocolatiers (no samples) displaying a phenomenal range of truffles, marzipan masterpieces, and all the gummi candies on earth left us in need of a break!

demonic sculptural tribute to Albrecht Drurer

Frauenkirche

            On our way back through the Handwerk Hof we refreshed from our sightseeing and shopping labors at the biergarten. We sampled more of the local bread, cheese, and beverages. Everything was wonderful! After acquiring an emergency stash of fresh pretzels, we decided to call it a day!

interior of Lorenzkirche

above the high alter in Lorenzkirche

15th century tabernacle in Lorenzkirche

The Ulm-timate!

         After a day that included fairy tale castles, breathtaking landscapes, and a Puccini opera on a lake, today had some big shoes to fill. We began with a rambling, circuitous drive through the Austrian and Swiss countryside. This is because all highways in those countries are toll roads and we are not about toll roads.

            St. Gallen is home to the Abbey of St. Gall, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that dates back to the 8^th century. The old town around the Abbey has the usual winding medieval streets lined with shops. We really wanted to visit the chocolatier, but they were closed for vacation until August! The sun was out and it was a pleasant morning for walking. The bells of the scaffold-shrouded Schutzengelkapelle were ringing over its green and orange tiled roof. We noticed that many of the churches in Switzerland (this region anyway) had their roof tiles arranged into sometimes quite elaborate patterns. The Abbey’s library holds an extensive collection of medieval manuscripts which we sadly did not have enough time for the complete tour. Today is already going to be very long!

        We did go in to the cathedral to marvel at its decorative wonders. Squared white columns and lavishly painted arches support domes richly painted with scenes from the Bible. The enormous windows composed of panes of clear glass gave an open, airy feel to the interior.

            We began the journey back to Germany through the lovely Swiss countryside – fresh green fields dotted with wildflowers, charming villages, and quick glimpses of lovely Lake Constance. We were supposed to stop in Konstanze, but had loitered too long in St. Gall and had to take in what we could from the car.

            Our next stop was Triberg, birthplace of Black Forest Cake and sun of the German cuckoo clock and wood carving solar system. It is also home to Germany’s largest waterfall. We started with the waterfall; it isn’t very big at 163 meters, but it is delightfully situated in a lush fairy tale forest replete with mossy boulders, ferns, wildflowers, and an alleged population of voracious red squirrels. We bought the squirrel feed, but they weren’t feeling it. Possibly they couldn’t handle the hordes of feral children having a blast running and shrieking through the woods.

            After a very enjoyable hike to the top of the trail we headed back into town in quest of the perfect clock and ready to enjoy the requisite Black Forest treat. The Café Schaefer has the original 1915 recipe from Josef Keller for Schwartzwalder Kirschtorte. It was excellent; the sponge was nice and light, the cherries just the right amount of tart, and a good ratio of cream to chocolate flakes! We raced back to the car (late again!) weighed down by cake and a clock and headed for our next stop, Ulm.

            Ulm! Definitely saving the best for last – not that Triberg wasn’t delicious and charming, and St. Gall wasn’t beautiful and quaint, they were. Ulm Minster, though! Ulm Minster is the tallest church in the world with a spire that reaches a height of 530 feet, the 4^th tallest building of any kind constructed before the 20^th century. Construction began in 1377 and finished 500 years later. Like Salisbury Cathedral in the UK, getting the entire minster in the frame of a picture takes some doing. Thank heaven for wide angle lenses or someone would have had to lie down on the pavement. The steeple is not just tall but beautifully filigreed as well. This will sound stupid, given what we have said about the size of the minster, but upon entering, one is struck by just how big it is! The long, narrow nature of the structure in addition to long, slender columns supporting the steeply arched ceiling actually achieve the Gothic ideal of seeming to reach right up to heaven. It is a truly monumental thing to see and we were so glad to see it - despite the hours it added to the day’s drive! Two more hours to Nuremburg tonight!

Bavarian Cream

           Our third day was so extraordinarily amazing that we are going to post this with a disclaimer – all the events and locations were absolutely the best thing ever. There is probably going to be a world-wide shortage of superlatives after the descriptions are finished and though it may sound like hysterical ravings of delusional lunatics, it is all sober fact. It was seriously an emotional, and sensory elevator. I know the phrase is “emotional roller coaster”, but there were no low points. It was a perfect day.

            We awoke to the gentle clang of bells from the flock of sheep grazing on the hill outside our balcony – the flower draped balcony overlooking the cloister and the surrounding Ammergau Alps. After breakfast we drove through lush countryside, so velvety green that it looked like it had been stitched together from pieces of Ireland. The rolling farmlands gave way to dense forests clinging to steep slopes as we approached this Bavarian “Valley of the Kings”!

            Hohenschwangau was our first destination. https://www.hohenschwangau.de/ This delightful butter colored hunting lodge/ palace was built by Maximillian II of Bavaria. He became obsessed with the history of the site – it was a stronghold of medieval knights who had the swan as their heraldic device. The family adopted the swan – and how. Swans appear in the masonry, precious stones, bronze fittings, the wall paintings, woven into hangings, carved into the furniture, rendered in silver and gold ornamentation, and doubtless 1000 other incarnations that we have overlooked. The dilapidated fortress, Schwanstein was reimagined as a neo-gothic tribute to the age of chivalry.

The interior is notable for being just generally magnificent. No, it is famous for its spectacular fresco secco paintings. Almost more amazing than the building and its impedimenta is their superb condition. The windows were all open! It rains every day in the summer and temperatures ping pong between 55-85 degrees in the course of 12-14 hours. How is it that everything we make today begins to disintegrate almost as soon as it is made? Anyhow, the paintings depict beautifully romanticized scenes from German myth and legend, such as Parsifal, Tannhauser, and Siegfried.

            Ludwig II grew up spending his summers here and loved the area. It is truly sublime. From the second floor Queen’s apartments, the writing room windows afford absolutely exquisite views of Alpsee and the surrounding mountains. Ludwig II made very few changes to the third floor (King’s apartments) when he inherited the throne. He added a telescope to track the progress the builders were making on his new palace, Neuschwanstein, and had holes drilled into his bedroom ceiling and filled with crystals that could be illuminated to give the illusion of the night sky. We also saw the piano reserved for Wagner’s use when he came to visit Ludwig and share selections from his new operas.

            After our tour we hiked back down the cool forest trail marveling at the charming alpine gardens and wondering why no one ever talks about Hohenschwangau. A 30 minute hike up to the other side of the lake brought us to Cinderella/ Ludwigs’s castle. He called his Romaneque Revival fantasy Neuhohenschwangau. It was renamed Neuschwanstein after his death when it was opened to the public. The names are all mixed up as Hohenschwangau was built by Maximillian on the site of the medieval Schwanstein and Ludwig’s castle (now known as Neuschwanstein) was built on the ruins of two medieval fortifications called Vorderhohenschwangau and Hinterhohenschwangau.

            This romantic fantasy cost all the money – literally. Ludwig spent his entire fortune and went into massive debt. His ministers should have restricted his travel since every time he went visiting, he came home determined to have his own personal version of whatever he had just seen. There was a contemporary trend in “restoring” castles during this time period and a look in at the reconstructed Wartburg near Eisenach and the Château de Pierrefonds, which were undergoing transformations from ruined castles into Pre-Raphaelite dream palaces.

            The interior bears witness to Ludwig’s veneration of Wagner’s operas and the tremendous impact of a trip to Istanbul. The design of the building was actually the work of a celebrated stage designer, Christian Jank, but Ludwig was personally involved in every detail. The palace merges Romanesque, Gothic, and Byzantine motifs and elements and even some of the local Lüftlmalerei fresco style, typical for local Allgäu farmers' houses. Again scenes from Lohengrin, Tannhauser, Parsifal, and Tristan and Isolde cover the walls and there is even a Tannhauseresque grotto build in as a passage between two apartments.

            He had a marvelous performance space called The Hall of Singers constructed. The stage has a painted scene from one of Wagner’s operas, but it was never used in Ludwig’s lifetime; this is attributed to his dislike of having people around him, but the palace was not actually finished at the time of his death. In fact only a very few of the almost 200 planned rooms were completed. I forgot to mention it, but really, it should go without saying that swans abound.

            The Istanbul trip resulted in the throne room. It is a decadent homage to Byzantine Christianity that makes clear Ludwig’s opinion about the divine rights of kings and also their role as mediator between God and lesser mortals. The room induces lightheadedness as your head whips around almost uncontrollably trying to decide whether to fixate on the magnificent 2,000,000 tile mosaic under your feet, the two tiers of simulated porphyry and lapis columns, or the ton of gleaming bronze encrusted with egg-sized ruby, emerald, and sapphire glass in the shape of a Byzantine crown over your head. After you get your bearings, you can admire the gorgeous cupola with its radiant blue background and scattered gold stars, and the heavily gilded representations of Christ, the Apostles and six holy kings in the apse. The walls show saints and the kings performing their various notable deeds.

            It was really fantastic – in every sense of the word. Hohenschwangau was gorgeous and amazing, but in the traditional palace manner – a genuine living space (for royalty), comfortable (for royalty), but Neuschwanstein felt different. It seemed more like a life-sized doll house for Ludwig to play out his personal theater of kingship or chivalric heroism or whatever. It all seemed like the world’s most incredible theater setting. In any case, we are sad he didn’t have the money or time to finish this or to carry out his plan of three additional castles. I can’t even imagine where he would have gone from here!

            We spent so much time in Ludwigland that we had to forego our planned visits to Lindau and to Vaduz castle. We jumped into the car and made all speed for Bregenz! This trip is the realization of two long-held dreams – attending Wagner’s Ring Cycle at the Bayreuth Festival (incidentally built expressly for Wagner and to his design by Ludwig II) and attending the Bregenzer Festspiele.

            After ten years on the waiting list we finally scored tickets for Bayreuth! As soon as we heard I immediately checked the schedule for Bregenz and was euphoric to discover that the dates lined up so that we could attend Turandot (my favorite opera since I was seven years old!). I am sure all the other works produced inside their theater are wonderful, but for us the Bregenzer Festspiele is about the Seebuhne! That is the stage that is built onto Lake Constance.

            Let’s just preface this section with a statement. We love opera. Opera has the capacity to be the greatest art form; that is because when done correctly (in my opinion) it is the synthesis of all the other arts – drama (literature and theater), music, ballet (had its birth as a sideshow to opera, although you rarely see any very good dance in opera today – so I’m reaching here), and the visual arts (costumes, sets, elaborate feats of theatrical engineering).

            That rhapsody over, I will now attempt to do justice to the production we saw….No, can’t be done. It was glorious! The voices were very good (I didn’t care for Liu, but the rest of the audience seemed to love her – too much vibrato and the tone was too hard in a role I like to see interpreted as all innocence and dewy youthfulness). The set design featured ranks of life-sized replica Xian terra cotta warriors partially submerged in front of the stage and just visible elevated over the back of the set. The central portion of the stage was a revolving asymmetrical cylinder set into a sloping recreation of the Great Wall. The top of the cylinder opened and revealed a giant video screen.

If you think a performance with light up dragons, battles with flaming swords, Chinese acrobats, 100 ft. fountains, performers entering via royal barge, an execution, and a collection of unsuccessful suitors’ heads in jars would be over the top, you’d be wrong. It was incredible! We thoroughly enjoyed every second. The glory of the natural setting – like at Santa Fe Opera Festival, adds an undeniable extra dimension to the richness of the experience. Lake Constance, or Bodensee, as it is called here is absolutely beautiful. I am adding links to a couple of the most famous arias –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sE4EgIG0pew

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXPfxafHfTM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h34omCNzK9g

            So that was it; the best day ever! The absolute cream of Bavaria with a side of Austria, garnished with Italy!